


It's All Greek to Me

by obscureenthusiast



Series: One-Shot Challenges [2]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: F/F, Kira Nerys is very tired please let her rest, The Universal Translator Breaks, declarations of love are made, it's a good time, shenanigans ensue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 15:37:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20084611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obscureenthusiast/pseuds/obscureenthusiast
Summary: When the Universal Translator shuts down, the station's senior officers are stuck trying to fix it without the benefit of being able to understand each other. And Kira would like that recording of the Cardassian to stop talking PLEASE.





	It's All Greek to Me

**Author's Note:**

> Part of my group chat's biweekly prompt challenge!!! This week the prompts were either "they all work in a mall AU" and "Universal Translator Failure"! (I *highly* recommend checking out all the other fics and art in the biweekly prompt collection, I am surrounded by amazing artists and writers who are so *so* creative ^_^)
> 
> Hope you enjoy!!

Kira grumbled in frustration and slapped the side of the console in front of her, venting her annoyance into the gesture. 

On the other side of the room, Dr. Bashir was rambling to himself in low Arabic as he scanned over the crew’s currently-malfunctioning universal translator implants. Meanwhile, behind Kira, she could hear Jadzia and Worf speaking in slow, halting Klingon as they worked together, as they were some of the few people in ops who could _actually_ understand each other right now.

Because while Captain Sisko and Chief O’Brien both spoke English, the engineer was off working elsewhere on the station, trying to get this piece of space junk to cooperate. Or, at least that’s what Kira _hoped_ was going on. 

No one here right now could speak Bajoran except the captain, and even then he only knew a few vague ceremonial phrases. He’d attempted at first to gesture and use Bajoran words to explain the situation, but eventually Jadzia had hopped up with a PADD with the whole situation written out and translated via the computer into Bajoran. Granted, with the malfunctions to the universal translator, the PADD’s explanation had been… somewhat of a flawed translation. Kira was pretty sure that the “bagel or sweetbread” didn’t need fixing.

From what she understood, though, some new programming from the Federation's computer system had triggered a short in the Cardassian systems on the station, which had caused the universal translator to go on the fritz.

Odo, who was the only member of the senior staff fluent in Bajoran, was too busy organizing security details throughout the station, attempting to keep panic to a minimum.

Travel to and from the station had been stopped. Apparently whatever was happening had affected even ships who had docked, and there was some worry that a ship leaving might cause the virus or _whatever it was_ to spread to other space stations.

“This Prophets-damned piece of _shit_ station!” Kira growled, as the console she was working on suddenly reverted back to a Cardassian readout. She gave it another slap on the side of its casing, but nothing happened.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jadzia look over with concern, but Kira simply puffed out a breath and got to her feet, stalking away from the console. She had enough awareness of herself to know that if she kept fighting with that thing, it was going to end up smashed to pieces. 

From behind her, she heard Captain Sisko call her name. At least, it sounded _kinda_ like her name; without the universal translator, the Bajoran lost some of its intricacies. 

She turned around, raising her eyebrows.

Sisko waved her over and, as she got closer, he passed her a handful of wires that he was holding. As she took them from him, he spoke a few words in English as if she could actually understand him, gesturing toward the console he was dissecting.

Kira shook her head, her eyebrows raising even higher in an attempt to show him that she had _no clue_ what he was trying to say to her.

He stopped speaking as he saw this, seeming to realize himself. He nodded once and then pointed directly at something on the console, frowning in concentration as he said, hesitantly.

“Sinner.”

Kira snorted and nearly laughed out loud. 

He smiled a little bit, shrugging, saying again, “Sinner,” then, gesturing at the tricorder in his hand, “Sought them out.”

Kira nodded in agreement, still amused, “Sight to see the Prophets’ will,” she said, partly teasing but partly because she knew that the prayer epithet would be a phrase he’d actually recognize.

Sisko chuckled, setting the tricorder aside and reaching down to work on the problem area of the console. 

And Kira, stuck standing where she was, holding a bundle of wires out of the captain’s way, took a deep breath and attempted to calm herself down. This was frustrating, this was a setback, but they would get through it.

A spark shot out of the console that Jadzia and Worf were working on and Worf yelled something in Russian (and based solely on context cues, Kira would bet it was profanity), and suddenly the lights throughout ops powered off. 

“Oh, come on!” Kira yelled, glaring up at the now-darkened ceiling as the red emergency lights flickered on.

Chief O’Brien rushed into ops and was yelling in English. Sisko immediately dropped his tools and rushed over to stand near the engineer, asking questions.

Kira dropped the wires and ran over to look over both of their shoulders, even though she couldn’t read what any of the consoles were saying. A voice blared through the overhead speakers, droning in Cardassian. 

She remembered enough of her rudimentary Cardassian to know the words “emergency” and “meltdown” when she heard them, and her eyes grew wider.

"Captain!" she said, tapping Sisko's shoulder to get his attention. 

When he looked at her, she gestured up to the speakers and then gave him a thumbs-down, shaking her head.

"It's… It's bad!" she said, feeling helpless.

Sisko turned his attention away from Kira as Chief O'Brien spoke, his tone sounding hurried.

The Cardassian recording blared through the overhead speakers again and Kira ran her hands back through her hair and rushed to the nearest console to try to gain any clues to what was happening.

Of course, she had to manually set the language to Bajoran before she could read anything, and her heart was racing in her chest. It felt like every second she wasted searching for "Bajoran" on the long list of languages was another second that she should have been helping the station.

Jadzia stepped over, leaning over the console beside Kira in the familiar way she'd often done before, except this time Kira knew that the Trill couldn't actually understand anything on the readout.

The gesture was sweet, though. It was like an anchor to normalcy after a long day of madness.

Kira flipped through page after page, searching desperately for information that she could use to help their situation. 

Or to even _understand_ their situation, since she still had zero clue what had taken them from simple translator failure to whatever it was that was happening now.

After a few minutes of finding nothing (with that Cardassian recording still blaring overhead on a cycle of every forty seconds or so), Kira growled under her breath and looked back to Sisko and O'Brien.

They both seemed hard at work, O'Brien looking particularly rushed as he babbled off what was presumably instructions for Sisko to follow. 

She hated not knowing. That was the worst part of this entire situation.

Kira inhaled slowly and let out a long breath, willing herself to release some of the tension from her body. 

“Here’s hoping we’re not all about to die,” Kira mumbled, bobbing her eyebrows and glancing at Jadzia, hoping for some commiseration.

Jadzia was frowning down at the console, still, a furrow of concentration between her brows. She looked over to Kira and smiled just the tiniest bit, murmuring something softly that Kira couldn’t understand.

The Trill language was lovely, though, even if Kira couldn’t understand. It flowed from word to word like water, so much gentler than the Klingonese that Jadzia had been speaking earlier.

Jadzia reached out and put her hand on Kira’s shoulder, squeezing gently, and it was like magic. Kira knew that it would be okay. Everything would be okay because they’d been through so many worse things together.

As long as her crew was around her, Kira knew she’d be alright.

As long as Jadzia was beside her, she could find comfort.

Kira smiled a little, gazing into Jadzia’s eyes and voicing something she hadn’t had the guts to say before.

“I love you, Jadzia Dax.”

Jadzia’s eyebrows shot upwards and her eyes widened in shock.

Kira frowned. Ops had gone dead silent. 

She turned around. Captain Sisko and Chief O’Brien were staring at her and she could see over their shoulders that Julian was standing with his mouth agape as he looked at Kira and Jadzia. 

She felt heat rushing to her cheeks and she turned around to face Jadzia.

The Trill waggled her eyebrows, a smirk on her face.

“You love me?”

Oh… oh no. No, _no_.

Kira wanted to die. Wanted to melt into a pile of goop like Odo and disappear into the floor.

“I didn’t mean -I mean, I _meant_ to say, uh…” Kira stammered, looking at any spot in the room that wasn’t Jadzia’s face, all too aware of the eyes all around the room watching her.

Before she could come up with anything to say to excuse her words, though, Jadzia leaned down and caught her lips in a soft kiss that lasted for just a moment.

Kira blinked in surprise, her heart skipping a beat as she tried to quantify what had just happened.

Jadzia beamed, “I love you, too, Kira Nerys.”

Kira snorted, stifling a laugh with her hand because after the stress of this day she wasn’t quite sure what else to do. Jadzia giggled and cupped Kira’s face in her hands, leaning down to rest her forehead against Kira’s, closing her eyes for a moment.

Until a soft throat-clearing noise reminded them both that they were still standing in the middle of ops, surrounded by both coworkers and partially-disassembled consoles. 

Kira stepped back, straightening her back and smoothing her uniform as she swallowed, willing the redness to retreat from her cheeks.

“Sorry, Captain Sisko,” she said.

He nodded soberly, although his face was split in a soft smile, “If you would, Colonel Kira, please contact Constable Odo and let him know that we should be able to reopen the station to arrivals and departures soon.”

The way he was using everyone’s rank made Kira feel like he was trying to remind them all that they still had jobs to do.

She took a breath, “Yes, sir,” she said.

“And, Commander Dax, please assist Dr. Bashir with the final re-checks of everyone’s translator implants.”

Jadzia nodded, “Right away, Benjamin,” she said, smiling at the captain without a hint of embarrassment. 

Sisko tilted his head at Jadzia, his eyes narrowing in amusement as he added, still in his usual businesslike tone:

“And when you’re done helping the doctor with the scans, I believe you have some paperwork to fill out concerning your personal file. Please remember you need his permission before anything _occurs_.”

Kira’s eyes widened and she let out a surprised scoff of laughter that she quickly stifled. At least laughing was better than being mortified, in this circumstance, because she hadn’t even _considered_ the fact that Jadzia would need to fill out the Starfleet paperwork. 

The paperwork for _relations_ with alien species.

Jadzia crossed her arms and reddened, but nodded all the same. 

“Of course, captain,” the Trill said, stepping away from Kira and heading over to where Julian was standing (looking about twice as embarrassed as Kira felt).

Kira covered her laugh with a cough and turned back to her work station, tapping her comm to get through to Odo.

There would be time to deal with the fact that she had just confessed her feelings for Jadzia in front of half of the senior staff of the station _later_.

Oh, _shit_, she had really done that, hadn’t she?

Kira pushed the thought away, attempting to return to work.

But she swore she could still feel the ghost of Jadzia’s kiss on her lips and she smiled. It was a small reminder that everything would be alright.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for reading!!! :D


End file.
